Searching Purgatory [COMPLETED]

Chapter Two

Dean woke up to find Sam furiously looking through the notes scattered on the table in the war room. He had a cup of what Dean assumed was coffee sitting on the table in front of him and he looked like crap. His hair was a mess and those were definitely bags under his eyes. He had attempted to get dressed this morning but his socks were inside out and the buttons on his shirt were off so his collar stuck up awkwardly high.

"You look like crap. How long have you been up for?" Dean asked.

Sam's head lazily moved so he could look up at Dean. The kid definitely needed more sleep than he was getting. "Good morning to you, too, Dean. I dunno. A couple hours, probably. I just...couldn't sleep so I thought I'd get started on the day's work. We have to start somewhere, right?"

"Well I guess. But why don't we start with breakfast?" Come to think of it, Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd actually seen Sam finish a whole meal.

"I have coffee," Sam countered, lifting up his mug to show Dean. But Dean just shook his head and made his way to the kitchen anyway. 

"A month, Dean," Sam called, stopping him at the mouth of the hallway. "Four weeks. Thirty-one days. Seven hundred and forty-four hours. Forty-four thousand six hundred and forty minutes. That's how long Lauren's been gone and we've got nothing."

"You've done your math, I'll give you that," Dean muttered, then he sighed. "What do you want us to do, Sam? We're trying. We just don't have any leads--nothing to tell us where Crowley might be. Meg has dried up all her resources; the angels are all busting their asses to try and get information out of heaven without being noticed. Sam," he sighed again and shrugged, his arms falling to his sides, "I don't know what else you want us to do."

Sam didn't look up from the table. "Crowley paid me a visit. This morning."

Dean raised an eyebrow and cocked his head towards his little brother as though he'd heard wrong. "He was here? In the Bunker?"

Sam nodded and slowly looked up at him. "I'm not sure how he found us here, with all the protection on the Bunker and what-not but he did. He said he wanted to have a chat."

"And you didn't just gank the son of a bitch?"

"No, I didn't. He has Lauren, Dean, so excuse me for not just killing him before we knew where she was. Besides, it wasn't like I offered the bastard a beer or anything. We chatted--maybe not as nicely as he would've liked--but we chatted and then he disappeared."

"Well, what'd he want?" Dean asked.

"He just wanted to tell me to stop looking for Lauren. And that..." Sam sighed and, whatever he was going to tell Dean, he changed his mind. "He has to be hiding out somewhere, Dean, and I'm gonna find him and I'm gonna kill him."

"Who're we killing?" Zoe asked, entering the room running a comb through her wet hair. In the last month, it had grown out past her chin, hanging around her face in wisps of blonde. Dean sometimes forgot that she ever had short hair.

"Crowley," Cas responded, walking in the room with Meg not far behind. The night before they'd said something about going to the Bahamas for the night and Dean wondered if they'd followed through with that. They'd started doing that after Meg's meat bag had healed; they would just point at a place on a map and go there, looking for information about Lauren and relaxing. Dean would never say it out loud, but he was definitely jealous.  

Dean looked at Cas, confused for knowing that they'd been talking about Crowley. "Celestial being, remember?" Cas reminded him. "I heard the whole conversation."

"Well I'm all up for killing Crowley," Zoe said. "But we have the slight bump in the road of not actually knowing where he is."

"We'll just have to figure that out, now won't we?" Sam said, opening up another book and pushing it towards Zoe who sat across the table from Sam.

"What happened to breakfast?" Dean asked. Of course he would be the only one thinking about food at a time like this. He frowned when everybody ignored him. Mumbling something about breakfast being the most important meal of the day, Dean sat down at the oval table and dragged a book that no one was looking at towards him. He wasn't sure what he was looking for exactly, but he figured that, as soon as he found it, he would know.

There was a flutter of wings and everyone turned to look up the stairs at the front door to see who'd arrived. It was Sage and Gabriel (the only people, er, angels, that it really could be) their arms full of old looking books and candy. It had been nice having those two around the last month. For whatever reason, they were the only two angels Dean had ever met who ate human people food. They were the only two angels anyone had ever met who ate human people food. According to Castiel, eating human food was like shoving a bunch of flavorless atoms down your gullet. But Gabriel and Sage certainly didn't feel that way about it. And they certainly didn't feel that way about sugary foods. Since they'd joined the group in the Bunker, there had been no shortage of pie, chocolate bars, and other dentists' nightmares. It was Dean's heaven.

"Good morning," Sage smiled, making her way down the stairs. "How did everybody sleep?"

"Like a baby," Dean replied, grinning at her. That earned him a sidelong glance from Sam who, apparently, wasn't sleeping like a baby. Anybody could tell that just by looking at him.

"Fine," Sam mumbled, hunching over more as if he hoped he would be sucked into the book he was reading and disappear.

Zoe grinned and propped her chin up in her hands. "I slept the best one can when their mattress is a rock." When she finished talking, she shot a glare in Dean's direction. The comfort of her mattress had been a discussion topic for quite a while. She'd always complained about it but, after finding out she wasn't human, Dean had promised  to get her a new mattress after she told him what she really was. Since then, she'd been giving Dean quite a hard time (constantly putting hot sauce on his food, changing his music, stuff like that).

Dean almost made a snide comment back at her but changed his mind. Their bickering would only tire Sam out and he didn't need any more tiring out.

Gabriel and Sage spilled the candy and books out on the table and Gabriel folded his arms triumphantly. "We finally have an idea."